GOP bill would ease rules for employer mandate

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill Monday to strip “onerous” reporting requirements from ObamaCare’s employer mandate, while also aiming to protect personal data for millions of workers.

Under her bill, employers would no longer be required to report workers’ information, such as Social Security numbers and date of birth, on a monthly basis. Instead, employers would report only certain pieces of data once a year.

{mosads}”Obamacare is killing jobs and putting the personal information of Americans across the country at risk,” Black wrote in a statement Monday,

“These burdensome reporting requirements take time, money, and resources away from the daily operations of running a business,” she said.

Without the bill, the Tennessee representative said, the Internal Revenue Service would be given unprecedented access to millions of workers’ personal information. The concerns echo her repeated warnings about the agency’s growing power.

The employer mandate is slated to go into effect in 2015.

Black’s legislation would also toughen requirements for people receiving subsidies, doubling down on income verification. Black and other Republicans have repeatedly accused the Obama administration of being too lax while handing out subsidies.

She sponsored a similar bill in 2013 called the “No Subsidies Without Verification Act.”

“It is unacceptable that this Administration has doled out billions of taxpayer dollars without first checking to make sure those receiving subsidies are truly eligible,” she wrote.